Nippon Professional Baseball’s Masahiro Tanaka (Rakuten) recorded his first win at Tokyo Dome in 10 years. He reached 194 career wins in Japan 안전놀이터.
Tanaka started the game against the SoftBank Hawks at the Tokyo Dome on Saturday and threw 99 pitches over seven innings, allowing one run on five hits with three walks and two strikeouts. He gave up one run on a solo home run.
Rakuten won 3-1, snapping a five-game losing streak for the third time this season. They remain in last place in the Pacific League with 27 wins, 38 losses and one tie. They trail fifth-place Seibu (28W38L1D) by 0.5 games.
Tanaka picked up his fourth win of the season. It was his first win in 26 days since May 31 against Yokohama. He lowered his ERA to 3.84.
He gave up a double to Gensuke Kondo in the first inning to put runners in scoring position, but struck out Yuki Yanagita to get out of the jam. In the second inning, she gave up a leadoff walk but got back-to-back infield grounders to end the inning.
With a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning, he got out of a jam. One out later, Akira Nakamura doubled to right and Daisuke Makihara singled to shortstop to put runners on first and second. Kondo got Yanagita to fly out to center field to load the bases. He got Kurihara to ground out to first base to end the inning.
After a leadoff single in the fourth, a sacrifice bunt put runners on first and second, but an outfield fly ball and a strikeout ended the threat. The fifth inning ended with a strikeout.
With a 2-0 lead in the sixth, gave up a solo home run to Yanagita on a 3B-1S fastball that went over the fence in center field. He retired the next three batters he faced to end the inning and shut down the SoftBank bats in the seventh 토토사이트순위.
Japanese media outlet Sportichi Annex reported, “Tanaka has 194 career wins (116 in Japan and 78 in the major leagues). It was his first win at the Tokyo Dome in 10 years, since July 9, 2013, against Nippon Ham.”
In his postgame interview, Tanaka said, “I’m feeling better, so I was able to throw my fastball well and use my changeup. I got help from my defense today, and I’m grateful for the tense game.”